


We live, we die and things in-between

by dreamfighter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, angst???, but also kinda canon divergent, first words spoken are the soulmate marks, help i do not know what i am doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfighter/pseuds/dreamfighter
Summary: At six years old, Cloud Strife knows nothing of soulmates. He doesn’t know that soulmate marks gradually appear, becoming completely visible the moment your soulmate speaks to you, their words tattooed on your skin. Until one day, the girl with long, black hair who lives next door comes knocking.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	We live, we die and things in-between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melonpaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonpaan/gifts).



> I was prompting her with “CT soulmate fic with the first words they say to each other written on their skin trope” and her reply was “So I can expect this written when?????” and I— *hangs head* Sis, I know you beta’d this for me but I also know that you know this is for you. THANK YOU and ilu5ever.
> 
> Fic and chapter titles are from Survive Said The Prophet’s song _Bridges_ —the band whose lead singer is Yosh, who sang _Hollow_. I’ve been listening to their most recent album, Inside Your Head, on repeat.

At six years old, Cloud Strife knows nothing of soulmates. He doesn’t know that soulmate marks gradually appear, becoming completely visible the moment your soulmate speaks to you, their words tattooed on your skin. That while the words may be there, it can take weeks, months, years, sometimes decades before they meet the person face to face.

All he knows is that words are slowly appearing over the exact spot where he can feel his heart beat the strongest, handwriting similar to his own tentative strokes, but more slanted, the way his can be if he makes the effort to write more neatly. They grow darker as weeks go by, like someone keeps writing over them the way the schoolteacher always makes them write their names over and over on paper. Sometimes he wonders if he wrote it himself.

_Do you want to play with me?_

His mother notices eventually. He had squirmed away, feeling embarrassed for some reason, hurriedly pulling down the shirt that she began to put on him, making his already spiky hair stick out in all directions. Claudia Strife lets him, an amused and yet strangely sad smile on her face.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, brushing his hair back and attempting to tame the more stubborn locks.

Cloud considers the question, tilting his head. “No…”

“Good.”

“But Mama, what is it?”

“It’s a mark. Like… the scrapes that you sometimes get when you fall down. But here,” she tapped over his heart. “It means you have someone who’ll love you forever.”

“But Mama, that’s you.”

Claudia laughs. “Someone not Mama.”

He doesn’t understand. “Do you have one, too?”

She smiles, straightening up and smoothing down her apron. “How about stew for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah!” he enthuses, mark forgotten.

It slips his mind until one day, the girl with long, black hair who lives next door comes knocking, greets Claudia with a cheerful, “Hey, Missus Strife!” before their gazes meet—his from behind his mother—and she beams, grabbing his hand. “Do you want to play with me?”

Time stops as Cloud hears nothing but his own almost painful heartbeat, each hard pound seemingly hammering the words over his heart.

Terrified, he pulls his hand from her grasp and runs away.

He learns more over the years, like how the girl’s name is Tifa. That if she’s his soulmate, then he’s hers. That the marks are the words soulmates first say to each other, and this makes him obsess over what he should say to her first. He’s taken to staying out of her way, simply because he doesn’t even know _what_ to say.

It’s strange how two people who don’t know each other are supposed to love each other—forever, as his mother had said.

And yet, as he watches Tifa from afar, he can see how easy it would be to love her. She’s really pretty. And kind. And talented—Claudia told him that the music they enjoyed listening to from next door is Tifa on the piano.

She always asks him to play with her and he always turns away without a word, shyness overcoming him. It makes her pout and sometimes stomp her foot at him for ignoring her, but still she’d repeat the invitation the next day.

What does she see in him, he wonders. He knows he’s not well-liked, their peers interpret his shyness for brusqueness, which leads to them thinking he can be pushed around. They’re almost laughably outraged when he fights back. Cloud gets scraped knees and bruises and he doesn’t mind; they fade, but Tifa’s words over his heart remain.

=====

At eight years old, Tifa learns about soulmates for the first time when her mother dies, leaving her father in anguish.

“She’s gone,” he’d gasped out, clawing at his heart, a gesture Tifa hadn’t understood. “She’s really gone—”

The whole town mourns the death of the village chief’s wife, their house always full of people coming to pay their respects, if in appearance only. They come in pairs or groups of threes, helping themselves to whatever refreshments or food that they’ve brought over, and these same people talk in what they think are low murmurs that Tifa can hear even though she’s curled up in a ball of grief her friends can’t unravel.

“Poor Brian. Losing a soulmate is never easy.”

“I hear it’s painful, losing the mark.”

“It is. Like your skin being burned away, except the mark disappears as if it was never there.”

A snort. “Fates are cruel. Imagine taking away the reminder that your soulmate once existed.”

“Isn’t that the point? The mark over the heart is just a physical reminder. The ones we love never leave us.”

“May the planet bless the souls who have crossed the mountain.”

Tifa stills and listens.

=====

Five years pass before Cloud decides to talk to Tifa for the first time, if only to tell her he was going away.

He’d opted to steer clear of her the whole while, especially when the one time he’d followed and approached her only ended up hurting her. When he saw her march determinedly up the mountain path and past the point deemed safe for townsfolk, what choice did he have? He’d only wanted to make sure she was all right. Her friends fell back one by one and yet Tifa trudged on. But he followed because… 

Because she asked him to play with her when no one else did. Because he had never seen her that sad before. Because he wanted to comfort her even if he didn’t know _how_. He thought he could at least watch over her, to make sure she was going to be okay.

Brian was frightening, practically spitting at him in rage as he blamed Cloud for the state Tifa was in after the bridge had collapsed beneath their feet. Claudia had been just as frightening—it was the first time he’d seen his mother that angry—pushing back and defending him.

But the truth is, Cloud blamed himself wholeheartedly.

His soulmate almost died, and it was all his fault. He should have called out to her...

Asking her to meet him had been a challenge. He hovered under her window for seemingly countless hours before finally taking a chance and tossing a note tied to a rock through her open window when he’d heard the first tentative notes of a piano; she hardly plays these days. Then he ran away, only hoping she’d read the note and come out to the water tower.

“Heya.”

He whips around, eyes wide as he takes in the sight of her peeking around the tank, ethereal in a dress the same color as the northern lights gently ebbing and flowing above them. She walks toward him and Cloud has to look away, feeling his heart in his throat.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to think of what he should say to her for the first time, so he opts for the truth. “Come spring, I’m leaving town...” 

She’s seated close enough for him to hear a small, inward gasp. He sees her bring a hand over her heart from his peripheral vision and his hands curl into fists on his knees, inwardly cringing at the thought that the first words he’d told her were _he’s leaving her_.

“...and going to Midgar,” he finishes, looking down.

“Should’ve figured,” she says, tone tinged with sadness and resignation. “All the guys are leaving.”

“But—but I’m not like them,” he’s quick to say, chancing a glance at her. Because he _isn’t_. He’s different. “I’m not going just to look for work. I’m gonna be a SOLDIER.” He feels his chest expand, proud of his dream. And not just any SOLDIER, “The best of the best. Like Sephiroth.”

“The great war hero, huh?” Is she teasing him? Does she think he can’t? “Hmm… isn’t it pretty hard to become a SOLDIER?”

“Yeah.” He has to agree. He’s done his research; it definitely looked anything but easy. He rests his arm on his knee, looking away. “So I won’t be back for a long time.” 

Not until he’s worthy of her.

“Guess not,” she allows. “Think you’ll be in the papers?”

“I’ll try.” If he’s going to be a SOLDIER, surely he’d do things great enough to get him on paper, right?

“Just… promise me one thing.” He turns his head a little, cocking his head. “When we’re older and you’re a famous SOLDIER… if I’m ever trapped or in trouble, promise you’ll come and save me.”

“Huh?” Cloud can’t help but look at her then, but she’s quick to look away, legs swinging up and down with a mischievous air. 

“That’s what heroes do,” she points out, and really, she’s not wrong. “They save people.” Tifa meets his gaze, leaning in. “Please? Just once.”

It’s wrong. She shouldn’t have to ask. What is he going to be a SOLDIER for, anyway, if not for the exact reason of becoming her hero? To actually be able to save her when he’d failed before?

“Cloud…” He swallows, blinking at the sound of his name on her lips. “We’re soulmates, aren’t we? So promise me.”

He stares back into her pleading, hopeful eyes until he can’t anymore, feeling his face heat up at their proximity. “Fine,” he finally answers grudgingly. “I promise.”

They don’t talk much after that, only gazing up at the sea of stars above them. Somehow Tifa radiates contentment right now and he lets it wash over him, feeling more relaxed than he ever has in a long while. He inwardly marvels at how easy it is to talk to her and just sit in silence with her. Is this what it means to be soulmates, being able to be with them this easily somehow?

If he’d spoken to her earlier, how much different would they both be?

It seems like forever and yet too soon when she eventually gets to her feet, looking apologetic as she tells him that she better head back soon or her father might look for her. They climb down from the tower and he walks her home, wordlessly following her. A sense of deja vu hits him at the sight of her back to him, just like five years ago, as she takes a path that would lead to the back of her house.

She stops one house away, turning to him with hands clasped behind her back. It’s darker now, but he can see her eyes twinkling up at him. “Here’s fine,” she whispers; after all, they’re standing in someone else’s backyard. “Thanks for seeing me home.”

He shakes his head. “Thanks for coming.”

Cloud feels soft lips on his cheek before he knows what’s happening, her hand pressed over his heart before she steps back, and this time she’s the one running away.

=====

It isn’t the first time for Shinra to come to town, but this particular visit has everyone buzzing because Sephiroth, the great war hero himself, is making the rare trip to the middle of nowhere. A local photographer is even hired for the occasion. Tifa’s nerves are also abuzz, but her excitement has nothing to do with getting to encounter an international celebrity. 

Sephiroth will be accompanied by SOLDIER, and she hopes that she’ll finally see Cloud again.

He hasn’t written, and somehow she doesn’t even expect him to, especially with the way he waited years before speaking to her for the first time. (She hasn’t written either, feeling too shy. Mrs. Strife is always kind enough to include a short line for her— _Tifa says do your best!_ in her letters to her son.) The one time he did write to ask her to meet him was more than enough. She can still recall feeling nervous, fretting over what to wear more than how to sneak past her father. 

She’d suspected— _hoped_ —that what he was going to say were the words branded over her heart, even though they were words of goodbye. When she finally heard them, for the first time since her mother died, Tifa felt like she wasn’t alone anymore. Even if Cloud was leaving town then. 

She _really_ wants to see him again. And when neither of the SOLDIERs who appear in front of her are Cloud, it feels as if someone has pulled the rug out from under her feet. She keeps calm and tries to inquire delicately, but when it becomes apparent to her that a blond-haired young man isn't there, her disappointment is so great that she finds herself running away. 

Business is business, though, and having long turned the focus of utilizing her skills from playing piano to martial arts and tourism, she still has to guide the SOLDIERs to the reactor, Cloud or no Cloud.

She’d been looking forward to possibly getting to see what’s inside the reactor. But to make matters worse, now she can’t even go inside, prohibited by the hero himself, a Shinra trooper blocking her way. She can’t help but childishly stomp her foot in frustration, but stays obediently put, anyway. She doesn’t think she has the heart to get this young man in trouble.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

The Shinra trooper inclines his head at her, and Tifa sighs, toying with a tassel of her leather vest, bored out of her mind and still irritated and _sad_. He’s yet to say a word to her throughout the trip, and she’s beginning to think he might be mute, but she definitely won’t ask if he is. “Just nod or something if you don’t want to talk. Okay?”

There’s a beat before he nods, and this makes her smile a little. “Great. So…” She takes a deep breath. “You know about soulmates?”

A nod.

“Do you… Have you met yours? Do you know them?”

A slow nod.

“Do you miss them?”

This time he nods three times in quick succession and Tifa can’t help but chuckle, relieved to have someone understand what she’s feeling. Even if it’s a total stranger. “I miss mine, too. I thought I was going to see him when they said Shinra was coming here, but…”

The soldier goes still, but Tifa gets the impression that he’s listening intently. “He left two years ago to become a SOLDIER. It must be really hard… I know he’s alive because my mark hasn’t gone away so I hope he’s doing okay…”

He’s turned away a little from her, shoulders hunched, and Tifa feels sudden embarrassment flood through her at having bared her deepest thoughts to a total stranger. “O-Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

He faces her again and shakes his head, a gesture she takes to mean that it’s fine. She opens her mouth to thank him when a shriek pierces through the air and he’s suddenly in front of her, gun at the ready. She falls into a fighting stance just as Master Zangan taught her, but as the other grunts who came running to the area start dropping like flies with each powerful hit from the beast, it becomes obvious that she doesn’t stand much of a chance, either.

The beast rounds on her, but the Shinra trooper braces himself firmly in front of her and takes the hit. Tifa cries out as he collapses but maintains her stance, ready to take it on with all that she’s got.

The other SOLDIER—Zack—rushes in. Tifa drops her fists and hurries to the trooper’s side, shielding his body with hers.

The fight is over before she knows it. She looks up as Zack approaches, gnawing at her lower lip in worry. “He… tried to protect me…”

“I know,” Zack says, crouching down. “Tifa, stay close to me.”

She nods and helps the trooper up, wrapping an arm around his waist and placing his arm over her shoulders. He grunts but follows her lead without protest. He’s heavy, but luckily not so much that Tifa can’t carry him. She silently thanks Master Zangan for her strength training. 

The trek down the mountain is mostly silent, save for their trudging footsteps and Zack occasionally taking out a monster or two. About halfway down the path, Tifa can sense that the trooper is trying not to put so much of his weight against her and she clicks her tongue, making sure her hold around his waist is firm.

“It’s okay,” she tells him softly, not wanting Zack to overhear. The other man is busy making sure their path is clear, anyway. “I can carry you. And you got hurt because of me.”

Tifa glances at him sideways as he shakes his head. For some reason she imagines a kind but shy expression and wishes she could see his face. “Thank you for that, by the way,” she goes on. “For protecting me. And for…” This time she can feel her face grow warm. “For that other thing.”

It’s a minute movement, but she sees him nod.

When they finally reach town, Zack seems troubled that Sephiroth is nowhere in sight. Tifa thinks it’s strange, too; there is something about this Shinra visit that’s mysterious and almost sinister. But she forces the thought out of her mind and volunteers to ask around town for the general instead.

Little does she know it would be the start of a long nightmare for the three of them.

_—fa? Tifa, stay awake, don’t—_

_Cure! Tifa, please—_

_—ster Zangan, she’s not brea—_

_—oenix down! We need one_

_...er pulse, it’s fading_

When Cloud opens his eyes, everything is green and wet and constricted and he doesn’t understand where he is or why he seems to be underwater or how he’s breathing.

There’s a prickling sensation on his chest and he slowly brings a hand up, clutching it weakly over his heart.

“Profes...r Hojo, sir?” The voice is muffled behind his glass prison. “Specimen C… —owing signs of ac...vity…”

His mark _burns_.

_Tifa? ...Tifa!_

Cloud thrashes, mouth open in a silent scream. Mako rushes into his throat, filling his nose and ears and eyes and he _can’t breathe_ he’s drowning Nibelheim burned everyone is dead he’s dying there’s nothing left nothing nothing _nothing_

“Professor!”

=====

When Tifa opens her eyes, she stares blearily up at a bleak-looking ceiling. One of the two strips of fluorescent lights overhead blinks despondently. She tries to sit up but her entire body is sore and aching.

“Oh, you’re awake!”

Tifa nearly throws her pillow in reflex at the woman who suddenly appears, eyes wide and heart pounding. Swallowing, she forces herself to uncurl her hand from the cushion, looking around instead. “Where…?”

“Midgar,” the woman replies and Tifa feels her axis tilt violently, like she’s falling even though she’s lying on what seems to be a hospital bed. She struggles more than ever to sit up, her papery hospital gown falling off her left shoulder, revealing a jagged, angry-looking scar across her chest, still freshly knotted and pinkish red.

But what catches her attention and makes her inhale sharply is the spot just above her left breast. 

Cloud’s words over her heart are gone.

She blinks, rubbing her skin there as if it would make the words appear again. Their absence reminds her of everything she’s lost: her father, the whole town…

And now, her soulmate.

There’s an anguished scream, but it isn’t until she feels the nurse embrace her, murmuring that it will be alright, does Tifa realize that the one screaming is her.

Five years pass before Tifa finally feels like she’s fully settled into life in the Midgar slums, fully left behind her past life and the painful memories that came with it. On another gray morning under the Sector 7 plate, she wakes in her tiny apartment, ready to start her day. Yawning, she stretches her arms over her head before getting out of bed, pulling her shirt over her head to change into something suitable for her morning workout with the punching bag in the corner of her room.

There is no way she could miss seeing it: a new mark over her heart, just the one word.

_Tifa?_


End file.
